Green Team (comics)

Publication history

The Green Team's first adventure appears in 1st Issue Special #2 (cover-dated May 1975), an anthology comic. For many years, this would be their only conventionally published appearance. Not long after their debut, a regular Green Team series went into production, but the DC Implosion prevented it from reaching store shelves. Two issues had been completed at the time the series was cancelled, and these saw publication of a sort in the first volume of Cancelled Comic Cavalcade (Fall 1978), a two-volume collection DC Comics printed on photocopiers to secure copyrights on the stack of unpublished material left over after the DC Implosion. In the first of the two unpublished adventures, the boys are pitted against giant lobsters and the Russian Navy. In the second, the Green Team faces a villain called the Paperhanger who has special wallpaper that grows plants and trees, and who is a dead ringer for Adolf Hitler.

In subsequent decades, the Green Team appeared on one page of Ambush Bug #3 (August 1985), in one panel of Animal Man #25 (July 1990), and a single page of Adventures of Superman #549 (Aug. 1997), in which the boys meet the Newsboy Legion and Dingbats of Danger Street, financing a youth center for the two street gangs. Writer Karl Kesel explained that he was a fan of the Newsboy Legion, and brought in the other two boy groups as a counterpoint to the Newsboys, since all three were created by Joe Simon and/or Jack Kirby. Cecil Sunbeam and Abdul Smith, two members of the Green Team, appear in Ambush Bug: Year None #1 (Sept. 2008).

As part of The New 52 reboot of DC's continuity, the Green Team and its sister book The Movement were re-established in 2013. Written by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani, and drawn by Ig Guara, the first issue debuted in May 2013 and focused on teens who use their financial resources to purchase power in the DC Universe, including super powers. This run lasted 8 issues and concluded in January 2014.

Fictional character biographies

The only prerequisite for joining the Green Team is possession of at least one million dollars, primarily in cash. The boys pay fortunes to anyone who can offer them a worthy adventure. In their first story, they fund the "Great American Pleasure Machine", a sort of roller coaster ride that brings so much pleasure, it drives the villain of the piece insane.

A text page in 1st Issue Special #2 (May 1975) explains, their jumpsuit uniforms have many pockets for money, with special locks, and they carry ticker-tape wristwatches, a chain of keys that unlock any of their many labs and money vaults in far-flung lands, and a quarter-million dollars each.

Membership

Original

• Commodore Murphy: A boy shipping magnate.
• J.P. Huston: A Texan oil tycoon.
• Cecil Sunbeam: A film director known as the "Starmaker".
• Abdul Smith: An African-American shoeshine boy who received half a million dollars due to a bug in his bank's computer. He shrewdly multiplied that stake, returned it to the bank, and had a million dollars left.

The New 52

• Commodore Murphy: The leader of the group, who is into electronics. He is also interested in superhero-related materials. He is affectionately referred to as "64" within the group, an inside joke related to his trust fund; he will inherit 64 trillion dollars from his family when he turns twenty-one.
• J.P. Houston: A Texan who comes from "old money". He is Latino and has a sister named Lucia Lynn who often spends time with the group. He has misgivings about Commodore's interest in "this superhero thing" and how it will affect the group.
• Cecilia Sunbeam: A big-time actress. People whisper about her: "She's a celebrity, and she has all the problems that go with that".
• Mohammad Qahtanii: A prince and the youngest member of the Team.

References

References

1. "The Green Team".
2. Abramowitz, Jack. (April 2014). "1st Issue Special: It Was No ''Showcase'' (But It Was Never Meant To Be)". [[TwoMorrows Publishing]].
3. ''Back Issue Magazine'' #18, [[TwoMorrows Publishing]]
4. Young, Brian. (February 7, 2013). "Exclusive: DC Comics Reveals Two New Politically-Charged Books". [[The Huffington Post]].
5. Rogers, Vaneta. (February 24, 2013). "Art & Franco See GREEN TEAM as 'Most Outrageous' DC Book". [[Newsarama]].
6. (July 2013). "The Green Team: Teen Trillionaires". [[DC Comics]].